traffic stop
by EtherealCrescent
Summary: (and this doesn't feel like real life: sun beginning to set, sitting on the hood of her car, having a road side conversation with a stranger)- korra x tahno, (also a little korra x mako)


**title**: traffic stop  
**summary**: _(and this doesn't feel like real life: sun beginning to set, sitting on the hood of her car, having a road side conversation with a stranger) _  
**pairing**: korra/tahno  
**word count**: ~3200  
**rating**: G  
**genre**: general/ romance  
**author's note**: haven't written for tahnorra in like a really long time but I was stuck in traffic the other day and somehow this is the end result of that lol.

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"Korra, I— listen, I _do_ like you but—"

And that's it, the last thing that she hears before her phone screen goes black.

She's sitting in her car, left hand gripped tight around her steering wheel and the other loose around her cell. Korra stares down at her phone with the slightest grimace on her face and thinks, _of course it couldn't have gone dead just one second sooner._ It's striking just how badly timed it'd been.

Strictly because she just can't avoid falling victim to that feeling of '_maybe-I-just-wasn't-looking-hard-enough'_ Korra turns to her passenger seat and scrummages through her book-bag. It is ridiculously over-stuffed, with far more than she should have ever brought on a weekend stay to visit her aunt, but for the twentieth time her charger still isn't there.

Sitting back in her seat with a huff (- she can literally visualize it, lying silently— _mocking her _—on her kitchen counter where she'd left it-) Korra let's her phone drop down onto her book-bag feeling frustrated (or maybe what she feels is actually a lot closer to confused and bitter).

Her conversation with Mako had not gone at all the way she had hoped it would go— a gross understatement — but she was generally completely clueless when it came to boys anyway, so perhaps she should have expected this.

"Stupid traffic," she mumbles under her breath, staring at the back of the van in front of her. (She'll focus on that— forget about Mako, the lump at the back of her throat, the heaviness in her chest, the _disappointment _) She should have been home almost an hour and a half ago and she hadn't even text'd her parents to let them know about the seriously _apocalyptic type gridlock_ she's stuck in.

And what's worse is that her Aunt Katara had told her to leave early in the morning— which had seemed preposterous at the time, like Korra was _really_ going to wake up early _just to drive—_ but now she's starting to regret not having listened. Things had a way of turning out like that when she didn't pay Aunt Katara any mind. Korra _swears_ her aunt is right about almost everything. _It's fucking creepy sometimes._

(and then Korra feels a little uncomfortable because she remembers talking to Katara about her boy issues and her answer and maybe Katara was right about that too. Maybe Korra shouldn't just be waiting around for some guy to make a decision... no matter how much she likes him.

She should never be a second choice.

But then again Katara had also said not to get too caught up in high school relationships, that Korra had her _entire life to lead,_ to which Korra had laughed because _um... I'm pretty sure I've heard the story of how you and Uncle Zuko met_ so really it was all up to Korra in the end now wasn't it?)

On the bright side, at least she had listened about getting some gas before she left to make the trip back home. She'd have probably been stranded by now if not.

But what the hell was she suppose to do to keep herself occupied now?

Finally, after sticking her head out the window to try and figure out what is going on (Korra can't see anything, nothing beyond the red sea of brake lights), she gives up hope and throws her car into park like she assumes everyone else had done forever ago. There is no movement on her side of the road headed south, and even weirder, there's no movement on the other side going north either.

Korra with a frown, imagines the sky going dark overhead and crickets starting to chirp, and her still sitting in the same damn spot. Bored, she reaches for her phone to check the time before remembering it's slumbering state, and the frown on her face deepens darkly. The clock on her radio is wrong... like dead wrong (it says 9:43 a.m. and she'd left her aunt's house at three in the afternoon) and she's never been the type to wear a watch.

Korra groans.

She doesn't get the guy. Gets stuck in traffic. Can't even figure out what time it is.

_—AND the music on the radio sucks._

Korra's head falls back against her headrest desperately and she looks out the window at the people who should be going in the other direction— all cemented to their spots like she is— and _hey,_ there is _one plus_, at least it's spring and nice outside. She would probably be—read: _definitely be_— _going out of her flipping mind_ if it was summer and she was being slowly roasted in her car right now. There's a nice breeze— so there is that, and she's always been partial to cool wind blowing through her hair than the stiff cold of air conditioning.

And this— sitting in her car with a half a tank of gas and a _who-knows-how-long_ wait ahead of her— is how Korra finds herself getting caught up in the art of people watching (a bored person's T.V.)— which she supposes is a skill nestled somewhere in between being observational and being a peeping tom.

But at the very least, it _does_ pass the time, and _is_ sorta fun.

Like... _that girl_ over there, a few cars back, looks about the same age as her and is listening to the same radio station as Korra is. Korra knows because the girl has her window down and unlike Korra, apparently _loves_ the song that's playing since she's belting it out loud— improvised dance moves _included_— and Korra doesn't even try to curtail her laughter.

And then there's _that guy_ in front of her, with his head down on the steering wheel looking absolutely _miserable_ (maybe even worse than Korra feels inside but _she. is. not. focusing. on. that_) and then _that suit-clad guy_ over there, who's talking on his phone and texting at the same time (_lucky bastard)_ who looks like he's far too busy for traffic to bother him at all.

And then there's _this guy_ right across from her, who's... _well,_ Korra doesn't really know what he's doing, she guesses just looking out of his window like she is but one can never be sure so she bites her lip and stares a little harder.

The first thing she notices is that he has the same car as she does, maybe a year or two newer, except his is silver where hers is blue and is missing a few specific cosmetic "freckles" ( as Korra likes to call the dings and scratches that mark her vehicle as undeniably hers— because cutting a few corners is just the way that _Korra drives_ and parallel parking, she swears, requires _sorcery_).

The guy though, is also about her age too (maybe a year older) but definitely still in high school, since he just has that _look_ about him— maybe a senior to her junior?

He has sharp features, pale skin, and jet black hair that _screams_ dyed— short in the back with a slightly long and... (—_he is getting more interesting by the moment_) slowly approaching overly-slicked _bang_ that makes Korra quirk an eyebrow.

He's tall (at least she guesses unless he's sitting on a _booster seat_ or something, a random thought which makes Korra snort out loud) and he's wearing a gray v-neck shirt over broad shoulders. He looks lean.

Korra purses her lips a bit.

He's _attractive_— in the way that you just _know_ that _he knows_ that he's attractive.

And he's... _oh— _and apparently he's staring at her.

_Shit._

Korra turns away so fast she feels a pinch in her neck.

And dammit, that had been _unbelievably awkward,_ and her face is beginning to heat because she'd been snooping in his car (which seems a lot closer to the side of peeping tom than observational after being caught doing it) and maybe she might even be a bit embarrassed for the tiny (_almost nonexistent)_ moment she'd been ogling him.

But then—

Korra catches herself because_— wait just one fucking second—_ she _doesn't get_ embarrassed and she doesn't even _know_ this guy— and also, everybody people watches, _it's a fact._ (And besides _he'd_ been staring at her too. He's just as guilty... or something) So, in conclusion, Korra steels herself and stubbornly turns right back in his direction.

Off the bat, just sitting across from him in traffic, Korra learns that whoever this guy is, he's either missing something essential in his personality or has too much of something else, because unlike every other person in the world (including her actually, though she had turned back which must say something about her too she vaguely admits) he hadn't turned away after their gazes met _at all._

In fact, _he's still staring at her,_ obviously amused and slightly smug (a look she can tell he's used to wearing by how right it looks on his face) and— _and_ is he mouthing something at her?

It looks like... _is he saying?_

"Smooth?" Korra echoes to herself with narrowed eyes.

...smooth?

_Really?_

One of his eyebrows is arched— _challengingly?_ It looks like a challenge to her— and the corners of his thin lips are turned upwards as if he's silently (_annoyingly)_ laughing at her.

Korra tilts her head, and because she can't really control herself (something about him just naturally irks her) smiles a condescending smile and flicks him off.

The guy— whoever the hell he is— just full on grins and actually does laugh at her this time. And it's after he's finally finished and Korra is glaring, unable to think of anything more that she could do (that is, besides flicking him off again— which would be dumb) that she hears the hum of him rolling his window down.  
She waits for the voice from across the median but then he seems to think better of it because he opens his door.

It isn't until he is standing _outside_ her car door, and she's _looking up_ at him (and he _is _tall, and lean, and obviously full of himself,_ she was right _) that it hits her that he has actually just climbed over the fucking median.

She blinks and looks past him. He's left his car door open (the inside of it, is pretty clean, also unlike hers) and vaguely Korra sees out of the corner of her eye that the singing girl and the miserable guy (and even the too busy for traffic guy) are looking over at them.

"What _the hell_ is wrong with you?" she hisses, glaring harder.

"What's the matter?"— and his voice is the definition of drawl, falls into the same category as the rest of him. He's got one arm draped across the top of her car _like a creep_ and the fact that he has no problem leaning in as close as he is at her window makes her want to haul back and punch him in the face— " Don't like it when _they're_ the ones watching you?"

And at first Korra is about to snap back at him _no,_ and that _she couldn't care less_ about who stares at her, and _really_ she couldn't. But she's sure the the real problem is that they aren't just looking at her, they're looking at _them_, and why that makes her fidget so much is anyone's guess.

But _then_ she realizes—

"How do you know who I've been looking at?" And just to get her point across, she crosses her arms— it has less effect considering she's still wearing her seat-belt, "You been watching me pretty boy?"

And he doesn't comment on the nickname (barely concealed _insult)_ or the snide way she's said it.

Instead he just shrugs a maybe, giving her a slow once-over that he doesn't even attempt to hide.

_Ughhhh_

"Did you want something?" Korra asks wryly, giving him the blankest look that she can muster, and she can literally _see_ the hundreds of possible _(inappropriate, suggestive, tasteless)_ answers that he considers saying scroll behind his intense ice blue eyes. (And wow, okay— they're _striking_ and sharp and entirely focused on her— which has absolutely no kind of effect— _nope — _none at all, and Korra tightens the crossed arms across her chest at the same time that she tries not to notice anything else eye-catching about him).

_(She fails at this miserably)_

"Well now that you mention it," he drawls in answer, leaning in a little heavier at her window, reaching inside, and Korra's spine stiffens. His eyes haven't left her, and she wonders if he just doesn't care or truly can't sense (which would be a first) that at any moment she is more than ready to elbow him in the neck. It would be far more in character for her than entertaining his bullshit has been already but there's this— _glint_ in his eyes, more mischief and games rather than creepy or dangerous, which stills her natural proclivity to violence.

But if he tries _anything_—

He reaches over her and grabs her cell.

Korra's brows furrow as he eases away.

"I couldn't help noticing your problem," he finishes, dragging a charger out of the back pocket of his jeans.

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"So... he likes you but he has a girlfriend," Tahno asks more to himself than to her, lounging atop the median as she sits on the hood of her car.

Korra finishes up the text to her dad letting him know she's stuck in traffic and looks over at Tahno. Honestly, Korra has _no idea_ how they've really even started talking about this or why she's felt comfortable enough to tell a stranger (an attractive, kind of a dick, guy stranger at that) about her boy issues. But when they'd run out of normal questions: the simple, _where are you headed and where are you coming froms?_ Tahno had boldly commented— seemingly not embarrassed at all about indirectly admitting just how long he'd been watching her—"So... you didn't look so happy on the phone earlier." And somehow it'd led to this.

"Yeah, I guess... basically."

After a long moment a bored "Hm," leaves his throat and Korra blinks dumbly to herself.

"Hm... ?" Korra urges because she'd kinda been hoping for a little advice or at least a little outlook from the enemy (because relationships and love has always felt like more of a battle between the sexes than real interaction to Korra), "That's all you have to say?"

"What?" Tahno shrugs, giving her a sidelong look," He wants you both."

And it is more the complete _nonchalance_ of the statement that makes Korra blanch.

"He— what, _no,_" she says defensively, feeling her stomach turn, "I don't know how you do things, but Mako, he's— he isn't _like that_. He's just confused."

The way Tahno turns towards her more fully and his look becomes incredulous, makes her feel see through, naive and _childish._ "Really,"he says, voice still irkingly calm and even, "Because I'm pretty sure all the evidence points to that being _exactly_ how he is."

Her fingers flex around her cell and even though Korra wants to try and defend Mako again— a guy she's liked from the first moment she'd met him— to this strange guy with a cocky grin who's so sure of himself, who doesn't— _can't_— know what the hell he's even talking about, she can't seem to find anything to say back to Tahno's observation _(accusation)_ so instead she just huffs, feeling uncomfortable but trying not to show it, and leans back on her hood, "Yeah well... what do you know."

Tahno shrugs again, turning away, all the intensity gone, "Enough," he answers boredly, "And for the record, the way I do things wouldn't involve me having a girlfriend to begin with," he smirks.

Korra's eyes slant to his and she raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, "Somehow I'm not surprised at the amount of sleaze that hints at."

He doesn't look at her when he says it.

"I'd rather be a sleaze than a cheater."

And since Korra doesn't want to broach that subject— thinking of how Mako has no problems texting her or talking to her while all the while knowing how she feels— she instead changes the subject instead.

"So, what do you do anyway?"

So far all she knows is Tahno's name and that she was right about him being eighteen and a senior, and that he's on his way from visiting his father and is on the way back to his mother's home; while she's been spilling secrets that people in her real life don't even know.

(_and this doesn't feel like real life: sun beginning to set, sitting on the hood of her car, having a road side conversation with a stranger)_

"What do I do?"

"Yeah, you know," she explains, glancing away, "In your free time or whatever."

He doesn't answer for a second.

"I think we're moving."

Her brows furrow as she continues to stares up at the sky, "Moving? What do you mean?"

But then she twists to glance over at him and sees him looking down the road. She turns to look too.

Far up the street, Korra can see some of the red brake lights blinking off.

"Oh," she murmurs, no where near as happy about it as she thought she would be, "I guess we are."

It's quiet for a few moments and then Korra lifts herself up and jumps off her car.

"Well..." , she starts, giving him a grin as she dusts off her jeans, meeting his eyes, "I guess it's been fun." And it isn't until after she's said it that she realizes she's not being sarcastic.

Tahno winks at her, swinging his legs over to his side of the median and standing up, "Absolutely. We should do it again sometime."

Korra laughs, shaking her head, "Yeah, okay. The next time I'm in a horrible traffic jam I'll make sure to call you up."She's smiling with her back against her car.

And they just stand there, in a strange kind of companionable silence that only begins to feel awkward when Korra notices how completely not awkward it is.

Quickly, she leans in through her window and unplugs his charger, and when she tosses it back at him with little warning she is a little impressed that he manages to catch it as cleanly as he does. She wonders for a second if he might play a sport, he's lean like a swimmer or maybe even a runner, and finds herself wishing they'd had just a little more time to talk.

"Thanks by the way," she says, lips still upturned, motioning towards the charger, "For that. And you know, for keeping me entertained."

Tahno pushes his charger back into his pocket and smiles back at her, and it could be a trick of the light but Korra doesn't think it looks as smug or full-of-himself as before.

"So I kept you entertained did I?" And then he ruins it.

Korra rolls hers eyes, but there's no real malice behind it. "Believe me, with the amount of bored I was it wouldn't have taken all that much pretty boy."

The grin on his face widens, "Well either way, don't mention it little girl."

And Korra thinks that maybe it's this simple, this effortless, because it's easy to be herself when she couldn't care less what he thinks of her.

"Don't plan to," she shoots back.

Tahno laughs and then he starts to turn around. And Korra thinks that's it. She'll turn her back and get in her car, drive her way and he'll drive his. And then in a day or two (or at the most, a week) she'll forget that he ever existed.

And she is just about to do that, hand grasped on the handle of her car door, when she hears her name.

When she glances back over her shoulder, he's somewhere half between his car and his side of the median and he's looking at her, eyes fixed.

"Actually, I think maybe I do deserve your phone number for all my trouble." And he's shouting it a little because the roar of car engines is becoming louder by the second.

And no one deserves to get anything just for doing something nice, but Korra doesn't say this because she kinda likes that she has an excuse to give it to him.

_—she kinda thinks that's probably why he's said it._

"Yeah, maybe," she shouts back and smirks, and his lip twitches into a matching grin of his own.

And then he's walking back towards her and she meets him halfway.

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That night lying in her bed with her phone tucked under her pillow and charging, it's Tahno and not Mako, that texts her goodnight.

Korra rolls her eyes... but falls asleep with a smile.

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End file.
